Book Title: Abhidharmadipa with Vibhasaprabha Vrutti
Author(s): P S Jaini
Publisher: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute

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Page 13
________________ ( xii) . In the fifth section of the Introduction the editor deals with the date and the authorship of the work. The extant portion of the MS does not preserve the name of the Dipakara. But the editor has adduced sufficient evidence to show that he is most probably to be identified with Vimalamitra a Kashmirian scholar, who according to Yuan Chwang, proceeded to write a work in refutation of the views of Vasubandhu, which probably is none other than the Abhidharmadipa. The time of the author would thus be between c. 450 A.D. to 550 A.D. The Kashmirian origin of Vasubandhu and Vimalamitra would incidentally enable us to realise the deep debt which Indian Culture and philosophy owe to that Himalayan state of the Indian Union. The three works so far published in the Sanskrit Tibetan Series of the K. P. J. Research Institute, Pramana-vdytikabhashya of Prajnakaragupta, the Dharmottarapradipa of Durveka and the Ratnakirti-nibandhavali of Ratnakirti deal with logical and philosophical activity of Buddhism in the second half of the first millennium; the present work takes us back to the end of its first half. The philosophical and logical activity of Buddhism was intense, and some of the Buddhist philosophers, owing to their fidelity to the truth, as they saw it, were often changing their camps as a result of further and deeper studies. Vasubandhu, the author of the Abhidharmakosabhashya, offers one striking example in this connection. He gave up his Sarvastivada and Vaibhashika views, as advocated in his earlier work the Abhidharmakosabhashya, and accepted the teachings of the Mahayana, as shown by his later works ilke the Vimsika and the Trimsika. The Abhidharmadipakara scents the Mahayana leanings of Vasubandhu and calls him a concealed Vaitulika or Nihilist, drifting away from his Sarvastivada moorings. There are several controversies between him and Vasubandhu, seven of which have been ably reviewed by the editor in his Introduction, Section IV. Some later works in Sanskrit dealing with the further development of the Abhidharma are now fortunately coming to

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